Chapter 108 – Versus the Bloodfallen 3 – Bloodburn

“Hahaha….” It started almost mild. “hihihihih….” Playful, even. “…he…haha…hehehe….” The long tortured woman reached for her own shoulder. “Hahahaha… hahahaha…” Her hand reached for one of the black objects, slotted into her flesh. “mhmhmhmh…” She tried to claw at it, but only managed shallow touches. “mhmhhahahahaha…Aha…AHAHA…AHAHAHHAHAAAHAAAA….!” The dam burst and her roaring, pained, insane laughter echoed in the air. She clawed at her hair, tore out fistfuls of the white and azure, only for it to regrow in a blink.

Like that, harming herself and regenerating, she kept on laughing. There was joviality in it, somewhere. A relief deeper than the torment that made her contort and her muscles tense, between bouts of laughter.

“Hehehe…” She looked at John. The facets of her gemstone-like eyes stretched and shifted as she adjusted her focus. The golden dots slowed to a traceable speed. Tears began to run down her face, meeting the curled up corners of her lips. “….Hahahaha… you…”

Was that a complete word he just heard? If it was, it got no follow up. Gent was the one who finally broke the scene. Despite his blood crazed state, or perhaps because of it, the giant attacked Thana head on. His giant fist flew towards the girl who had just killed his precious guild leader.

The force that had flung Aclysia across the room, Thana stopped it with one hand. She didn’t even look at Gent. Her hand was stretched out, like she was casually leaning on a table. There was no sign of her even taking the impact.

Herman’s friends were slowly inching towards the exit. An understandable reaction. Besides them, only the drops of blood suspended in the air moved. They all consolidated, flying towards Thana..

“Niezadowalający” That definitely was a word. John had no idea what it meant or what language it was, aside from it sounding Slavic in origin, but it was definitely a word. A word that was followed by Thana casually shoving the goliath back. She waved her arm, from the right side of her up to her left shoulder. The blood in the air obeyed and turned into a cascade of thorns, half-crystal, half-scab, that perforated Gent.

The crimson flood pulled back a moment later, drawing with it all of the tainted blood inside the victim it had just claimed. It flew towards Thana, enveloping the extended hand and covering her naked body in an exterior layer of veins for a moment. It connected to her at the fingertips, the exposed nail beds the opening of her outside and inside.

The streams disconnected. Some of the blood stayed at her fingertips, consolidating and hardening into aberrated claws. The rest of the blood cascaded to her back, gathering into an orb. The more of the crimson that flowed into it, the more apparent it became that it was consolidating the power. When the last drop seeped into it, Thana’s endless chuckling ceased. Left was a mad smile and the remains of tears.

The orb surged, the surface crystalized and unfolded into four segments, two small and two big, connected by a still semi-liquid mass. It hooked into Thana’s spine like a grotesquely oversized parasite.

A crystallized web of thick core veins, so dark red that it was almost black. Thinner, semi-liquid or still completely bloody membranes spanning between, a vile design, mirrored perfectly along her spine, symmetric down to the way her heartbeat pulsed through them. Vile – vile and beautiful, the wings of a deadly butterfly. A butterfly that would drown the world in her blood, if the insane smile was anything to go by.

“Bloodburn.”

A word above words. A sound above sounds. A magical phenomenon so intense it etched itself into John’s brain, meaning clear beyond language.

The thick veins caught fire on this single word. Her wings were still like a butterfly’s but now deep crimson fire enveloped them, fraying the edges as it danced to the tune of Thana’s heartbeat. It danced and it sung, a sound like electronically tuned, shrill violins.

As the wings flared up in quick succession, Thana lowered herself to the floor. She folded her legs, one hand on the floor the other, her left, raised above her head. The blood claw started to swell, enveloping first her entire hand then her entire arm.

She was a streak of pale and crimson red. Bloodfallen in her path were shredded apart like they were made out of wet paper. In a second, the silent room was filled with a cacophony of screams as Thana tore apart every last person before her. Every – last – person.

The mage, the same one John had talked to, the friend of Herman’s, was violently dismembered. Thana barely gave the arm enough time to land behind her, before slamming her fist wrist-deep into the man’s guts.

This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good at all. This was worse than the worst case scenario. This was….

“What the fuck are ya doing?” Rave ripped him out of his staring and grabbed him by the hand. “RUN!”

That was simple enough. He could do that. They aimed directly for the exit. As fast as they could. Thana was still happily massacring the Bloodfallen members. Rivulets of blood rose from the pools, her own ichor separating from that of her tormentors. Whether she knew better or not, she massacred the rest of the rescue party as well. She was all grins and violence.

John, Rave, and Aclysia had almost reached the stairs. Outside of this Illusion Barrier they would be safe. They had to be. They could run, they could….

Thana appeared between them and the stairs, in a flash of movement and screaming violins. They stopped, she stopped, her mouth tried to form words again but instead she coughed up blood, massive amounts of it. A moment of weakness. Nothing they could capitalize on. Copernicus, however, could. The solar cat jumped from his wristband and at the blood mage, or whatever the hell she was.

Unprepared as she was, Thana actually was blinded by the cat as it landed, a clawing and not at all elegant fur ball, on her face. “FLEE!” Now he was the one handing out the basic advice.

They only had a small window of opportunity so they quickly ran by. John was first, Aclysia second, Rave last. They could not look back. No time to worry about the others, no time to regret. Not now. That would come later.

Thana finally got a hold of that pesky feline on her face and ripped it off, looking at it for a second before sinking her flawless teeth into the sun made fur. There was a moment of disbelief. Thana ripped out a huge chunk of Copernicus with her teeth, she turned with burned lips at the trio behind as she dropped the heavily injured, possibly dead, light elemental without a care.

“You stay… I need you to stay!” she shouted in a voice that was quickly changing from deep to high and back, the tone of a person unsure how to give stability even to their own words.

They had everything against that. If fire harmed her then all John needed to do was give all of his mana to Salamander and hope for the best. An Inferno filled the tight space of the stairs as the trio desperately ran for their lives. The steel door at the top was still unlocked. A glimpse of daylight illuminated the ceiling. His mana was out. They just needed to tear through the edge of the Illusion Barrier. The violent way out. Rave let out a yelping shout.

“You are STAYING!” Thana shouted, laughed, and cried, her hand firmly grabbing Rave’s wrist.

“Keep running John!” Rave pointed her other hand at Thana’s face and unleashed a continuous blast of sunlight. Thana cackled as her freshly regenerated skin was burned again. Her hand stayed in place.

“I can’t leave you behind!” John cried.

“JUST RUN!” Rave sounded pleading, the attack didn’t stop. How, how did it not stop? Her mana was not that extensive, he could see that in the Group Interface. The bar was depleted.

Then it flared up again. A huge chunk of her health vanished in response as she took a deep breath, collecting mana as the burning continued. John wasn’t running, he could leave behind all of these people Herman brought, he would feel bad but John could live without them, he couldn’t do that with her, he loved her, he couldn’t leave her here. Rave knew that.

“Aclysia I command you to take him out of here.” What a useless idea to get Aclysia to….

The Artificial Spirit picked him up, threw him over her shoulder and started running without a word. ‘STOP!’ She didn’t, ‘Aclysia stop!’ she didn’t, ‘Obey me!’

‘I am.’ The answer was filled with torment. ‘I owe her one order, as per your instructions… more importantly, my prime objective is protecting your life, John.’

His eyes widened. No, not like this. “STOP HER!” He yelled at his elementals, who obeyed even against their best interests.

Aclysia wasn’t even bothered. John had used up all his mana so Gnome couldn’t erect any barriers. The attacks of Salamander were useless against her Fire Resistance, Undine didn’t have the power to create a wave strong enough to rip down the metallic body and Sylph’s attacks were unable to cut past Elemental Resistance 6.

So, it came that John could do nothing but look as Rave kept drowning the stairs in superheated light and see as with every breath she took, her life decreased. He saw her far behind, Aclysia had reached the door. John saw Rave collapse, Thana, already regenerated, broke from the sunlight and slashed a clawed hand along his dying girlfriend’s neck.

Then the world changed.